Circuit designers receive circuit performance requirements from a customer and design circuits capable of satisfying the performance requirements. Circuits are designed using computer programs which help the circuit designers simulate a performance of the designed circuits.
During design of a circuit, resistance and capacitance between neighboring devices and conductive elements are taken into account in order to more accurately predict a performance of the circuit. As node sizes decrease, spacing between the neighboring devices and conductive elements also decreases which increases an impact of resistance and capacitance on performance of the circuit.
For circuits based on fin field effect transistor (FinFET) devices, circuit designers create two separate schematics. One schematic includes artificial elements which are not part of the actual circuit design. These artificial elements are used to help account for the resistance and capacitance between the neighboring devices and connections. Another schematic does not include the artificial elements and is used to help arrange devices within the circuit. The two schematics are refined using an iterative process which includes making modifications to both schematics to remove discrepancies between the schematics and satisfy the performance requirements.